It is early in the morning on August 3, 2014, when hundreds of IS warriors launch their attack on Sinjar in northeastern Iraq. The area near the Syrian border is home to the majority of the world's Yazidis, an ancient religious minority that the terrorist group has branded as "devil worshippers" and "heretics".
Many Yazidis flee, but thousands are taken captive.
Men and teenage boys who do not convert to Islam are summarily executed, according to a report from the UN's special commission for human rights violations in Syria.
The men and boys who survive are forced into labor after forced conversion, while younger boys are made into child soldiers and suicide bombers. Women and girls are taken to Syria to be sold as slaves to IS.
Daily Rapes
The UN report testifies to how women and children in desperation rip and soil themselves to try to make themselves unattractive to buyers. Several also take their own lives.
Those who are sold have later told of near-daily rapes.
We spoke with a doctor who examined women and children when they returned to Iraq. There were over a hundred people. No one over nine years old had not been raped, says Nicolette Waldman, investigator at Amnesty International.
Any resistance was mercilessly punished. A woman tells in the UN report about how several of her children were killed after an escape attempt.
In 2016, the UN recognized the abuses as genocide and stated that IS was trying to exterminate the Yazidis.
But despite IS's collapse in 2019, an estimated 2,600 Yazidis are still missing. Many are believed to be held in the internment camps set up for IS supporters, after being swept up by mistake along with their perpetrators.
Amnesty International demands that more is done to get them out, not least from the international community.
It's not hopeless, there are Yazidis out there, but it requires much greater efforts to be able to identify them and return them, says Waldman.
Few Prosecutions
Even though the genocide is well-documented, very few cases have led to prosecution. In the fall, the first Swedish trial was held, where a woman from western Sweden was charged with holding Yazidi slaves in Syria as part of IS's systematic attacks on the group.
The case has been followed far beyond Sweden, according to Nicolette Waldman.
This is an extremely important case. Even if this is just one person, it is symbolically important for the Yazidi community, that this is not something that is ignored.
On Tuesday, the woman was sentenced to 12 years in prison for genocide, crimes against humanity, and gross war crimes.
